Chapter 112: Underworld Red Tape

Seeing Youqi smile pitifully at him, Wei Chen really wanted to dig a hole and hide there. However, after the first rush of embarrassment passed, he fortified his thick skin, braced himself, and asked.

“Ms. Youqi, why are you here? What do you need?”

Seeing that her colleague was trying to change the subject, she humored him.

“Was it not you who comprehended the Deathless Legion Summoning Decree? I am here to guide you through the procedure,” Youqi said.

“Procedure? What do you mean?” he asked curiously.

“Please follow me.” Youqi turned around and waved her hand. A red portal opened in front of her, and she led Wei Chen into it.

Wei Chen looked at the portal, then at the pagoda. He willed the pagoda back, and it quickly grew smaller and smaller until it returned to its compact size. He then stored it inside the broadcasting orb’s storage.

“Wait here, Max. I will be back,” Wei Chen said to Max, who was still grumbling impatiently since he had not received his food yet.

Wei Chen walked through the portal and appeared inside an office. It was a simple office with a desk and a nearby filing cabinet. Youqi walked to the cabinet and began searching for something.

While Youqi searched, Wei Chen looked around the office. He saw that it seemed to be located inside a skyscraper within the underworld. The view outside the window matched the underworld he had seen during his epiphany.

The office was decorated in a minimalist style. Other than the filing cabinet, there was only a simple potted plant and a small face-down canvas on the desk. These were the only things that hinted at Youqi’s personal life.

Wei Chen felt a pang of curiosity but decided to ignore it. He was not familiar enough with her to pry into her private matters.

“Ah, it is here,” Youqi said with a smile as she pulled out a small stack of papers from the filing cabinet and closed the drawer.

She sat behind the desk, placed the stack of files on the table, and turned them around for Wei Chen to see.

“Huh?” Wei Chen leaned forward curiously to read the file.

On the header, it read, “Warrior Recruitment Form.”

“What is this?” Wei Chen asked, confused.

“As you can see, this is the warrior recruitment form. Since you have already comprehended the Deathless Legion Summoning Decree, this form allows you to recruit unemployed underworld denizens to serve as your personal forces,” Youqi explained.

Hearing this, Wei Chen’s mind glitched mid-processing.

A recruitment form for the Deathless Legion Summoning Decree? Why?

Was this not supposed to be a necromancy technique? Resurrecting slain enemies as warriors and turning them into pawns?

I mean, that was the basic experience of a standard necromancer, like that Korean edgelord.

Why was there a form? Why paperwork? Signatures? Procedures?

Why was there red tape?

What the hell?

Seeing the blank, stupid stunned look on her colleague’s face, Youqi let out a sigh. She knew exactly what Wei Chen was thinking.

“Mr. Wei, you must understand. The death warriors you are going to summon come from legal sources that do not provoke the heavens. Because of this, there is some red tape, along with registration and legalization,” Youqi explained.

Hearing this, Wei Chen was stunned. He quickly opened the UI and showed it to Youqi. Since she was his colleague and the Lord of Death’s secretary, she could naturally see the redeeming shop interface.

Wei Chen immediately pointed at the description of the Deathless Legion Summoning Decree.

“But the description says nothing about red tape,” Wei Chen said as he presented the evidence on the UI.

[A technique that allows the practitioner to bind the souls of fallen entities to serve them. The entities must either lack the will to resist, or be defeated in battle by the practitioner before the technique can bind their souls into servitude.

This technique makes use of the laws of the underworld and aligns with the Dao of Samsara, meaning the practitioner does not need to fear heavenly tribulation for practicing it.]

Youqi read the description carefully and nodded in understanding.

“I see. It seems this is the description of the previous version of the Deathless Legion Summoning Decree,” Youqi said.

“What do you mean by previous version? Don’t tell me this thing has firmware…” Wei Chen asked with a wry smile, unsure whether to laugh or cry.

Youqi giggled. “This is a support technique, not some software, Mr. Wei. It is not like that. However, you see that this item has a massive discount. There is a reason why this item has such a discount.”

Wei Chen’s mouth twitched. “You mean… it is a defective product?” Wei Chen concluded.

Youqi paused and thought for a moment. “Umm… it is complicated, Mr. Wei,” she said, since the issue was not so clear cut.

“How so?” he asked.

“If it is the product alone, the Deathless Legion Summoning Decree is not defective. Everything should have worked as described. In fact, the description is correct when it comes to the product alone. It should have worked as you imagined, Mr. Wei,” Youqi explained.

“Then… why not?” Wei Chen shrugged.

“It is because of the new regulations,” Youqi said, but Wei Chen’s face was filled with confusion.

Seeing this, Youqi decided to tell him the full story.

“It is like this, Mr. Wei. This Deathless Legion Summoning Decree should have worked as intended according to the description, but that was about one hundred thousand years ago, at the end of the era that mortals call the Demonic Dominance Era.” She paused, as if trying to find the right words or soften what she was about to say.

“Specifically, your senior cultivated this Deathless Legion Summoning Decree to perfection. At the end of that era, he abused this technique and turned half the population of the world into his deathless warriors for his own war. That included the upper realm of the mortal world,” Youqi continued.

“Your senior succeeded in unifying the upper and lower realms, but the casualties were beyond counting. It also destroyed the balance of heaven and earth and affected the Wheel of Samsara, which was already damaged by the great war during the Primordial Era.”

“This caused the heavens to become unbalanced, and the dead in the underworld were forced to reincarnate even though they were not ready. For example, their memories of their previous lives were not cleansed, and their karma was still tainting their souls.”

“This led to a long chain of unforeseen consequences, and our lord has had to deal with it until this day. So…” Youqi wanted to continue, but Wei Chen already understood.

“So you mean His Honor had to put heavy regulations in place to stop this from happening again,” Wei Chen concluded.

“That is the gist of it,” Youqi smiled and continued. “So when you tried to use it after comprehending it, our underworld system simply did not respond, because it is not allowed.”

“So it is the same as an ISP blocking access to certain explicit educational websites,” Wei Chen concluded.

Youqi smiled and nodded.

Seeing this, Wei Chen felt an urge to beat the crap out of his senior, whoever he might be. That f*cker went too far and messed things up so badly that his junior now had to pay for it.

“Who was that senior? Is he still alive?” Wei Chen asked, just in case.

“Umm… if you mean the one from one hundred thousand years ago, he is already dead. Right now, he is living on as a maggot in a cesspool, with all the memories of his previous life intact. I must say, our lord was quite upset about what he did,” Youqi said.

Wei Chen’s mouth twitched. If what the Lord of Death did could be considered “quite upset,” then he did not dare to imagine what it would be like if the guy were completely pissed off.

Seeing that Wei Chen did not have any more questions, Youqi began to explain the form.

“Mr. Wei, please bring this form to the job market and tell the administrator there that you have come to recruit warriors for your Deathless Legion. For this Deathless Legion, you need to provide wages and benefits for your warriors, as well as lodging while your warriors are operating in the mortal world.

Also, you need to pay attention to the…” Youqi continued to bombard Wei Chen with a long list of regulations, most of which were similar to employee protection laws.

Wei Chen even learned that Underworld Gold Coins were the actual currency used in the underworld.

“Is everything clear, Mr. Wei?” Youqi asked again.

Wei Chen was stunned, but afraid of being seen as stupid, he decided to nod first.

Youqi smiled pitifully at Wei Chen. Seeing that he still seemed confused, she handed him a booklet.

“If you have any questions, please consult this booklet. It also includes a map to the job market. Good luck, Mr. Wei,” Youqi said with a smile.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep